Venezuela uses 'F word' to discredit fracking

CARACAS (Editor's Note: please be advised that paragraphs one and two contain language that may offend some readers)

Venezuela is not mincing words with a new exhibition titled "F---ing Fracking" that denounces the environmental toll of hydraulic fracturing in the United States.

"Today at 4pm .... Inauguration of the educational exhibit #FuckingFracking ... Don't miss it," ruling Socialist Party official Ernesto Villegas said on Twitter.

The event features speeches by an economist and oil expert, and will wrap up with a play, according to a half-page advertisement in newspaper Ultimas Noticias.

The ad depicts a fractured heart dripping with black oil with dried up leaves coming from the arteries.

President Nicolas Maduro has for months alleged that the United States is deliberately flooding the market with shale oil to sink prices and destabilize his OPEC nation, as well as Russia.

The decline in oil prices has slammed his increasingly cash-strapped and unpopular government in the midst of a deep recession and ahead of important parliamentary elections.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves injecting water and chemicals deep underground to break up rock and release oil and gas.

Environmental groups have expressed concern about risks linked to the process, such as chemical leaks into groundwater and disposal of waste water produced in the process.

(Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Toni Reinhold)